Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of mobility on the apprentices’ wages. Design/methodology/approach: Using a French longitudinal survey concerned with young people’s entry into the labor market and their subsequent employment trajectories, this paper estimates the impact of mobility on post-apprenticeship wages correcting for different selection bias. Findings: Mobility is both voluntary and enforced. It combines imposed selection mechanisms and more active match searching behaviors on the part of apprentices. Apprentices who change employer do not have significant lower starting wages than those who remain in their training firms. Nevertheless, in the medium term, those who defer their moves tend to benefit more from their mobility. Those who move immediately see their wage rising less sharply. Practical implications: The findings indicate that policy makers should be concerned with job mobility at the end of the apprenticeship contract. Manpower policies should focus on measures that enhance the transferability of accumulated skills and the acquisition of new skills by apprentices. Originality/value: To the author’ best knowledge, this is the first paper studying the effect of mobility on apprentices’ wages in a dynamic perspective and correcting for the selection of different categories of mobility (immediate vs deferred mobility). © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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